If you were out at Monroe Golf Club on what felt like a raw, early October afternoon better suited for a Bills game, you may have thought Brittany Lincicome was having a pretty tough day.

There were at least half a dozen times where she'd hit a shot during the third round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship, and her body language after the follow through indicated that she was really ticked off about the result.

Yet then you'd see where the ball ended up, and more often than not it was fine.

"Really?" Lincicome said with a quizzical look when she was informed of how it looked. "I'm going to have to work on that tomorrow. I'm not really sure what my face was doing."

The 28-year-old Floridian didn't play as well as she did on Thursday and Friday when she built a three-stroke lead with rounds of 67 and 68, but her 1-under-par 71 enabled her to maintain the lead at 10-under 206, albeit now by just a skinny stroke over Inbee Park and Suzann Pettersen, the third- and fourth-ranked players in the world, respectively.

It looked like Lincicome was hitting loose ones much of the day, but she went on to debunk the idea that she wasn't happy because, in truth, she thought she played fine and is thrilled to be where she is considering she hasn't won in three years.

"I know a lot of clubs today we were in between, so maybe I felt like they should have been further or maybe I hit it too far and needed to come back," she said.

“Yeah, nervous was probably an understatement. ... I think because I haven't been in this position in a while, it just kind of all caught up with me.”

Brittany Lincicome on her Saturday nerves

If the five-time tour winner is going to end her victory drought, she will have to do two things: Keep her nerves in check, and continue pummeling the par-5s, on which she is a cumulative minus-11 this week.

"Yeah, nervous was probably an understatement," she said of her pre-round feeling. "I was fine all morning ... and then when it came time to kind of eat lunch, it just wasn't happening, and then on the course I took some stuff to calm my belly. I did have a banana, a few bananas actually. I think because I haven't been in this position in a while, it just kind of all caught up with me."

Clearly, nerves haven't been a problem on the par-5s; she has flat out chewed them up and spit them out. She has birdied Nos. 9 and 12 all three days, birdied 14 twice and eagled it once, and birdied No. 3 once.

"I hate talking about it because I feel like I'm going to jinx myself," she said with a laugh. "But yeah, today, you know, I had a 5-iron into one of them, I think I had a 7-iron into one of them, I actually came close to reaching 9 today which hasn't been possible. ?Definitely if I can hit it in the fairway and obviously hit it on the green and two-putt or one-putt to be able to be stress-free kind of helps your round."

Her stomach may have been fluttering, but she started well, striping a drive down the middle at No. 1 and two-putting for par, and she went on to par the first four holes before a three-putt bogey at No. 5.

She rescued that stroke by hitting a lob wedge to a foot at No. 7 for birdie, and then two-putted from the front fringe at the par-5 ninth for birdie which got her to 10-under, and that's where she finished.

A bogey at 10 was offset by a birdie at the 12th when she hit a nice chip from the right rough to six feet and converted. And then a bogey at 13 was nullified when she reached the 14th in two with a 7-iron and again two-putted for birdie.

Lincicome will play side by side Sunday with Pettersen, who can hit it just as far as she can. Pettersen is 8-under on the par-5s.

"You see everyone up there is quite long hitters, I would say, and this course definitely favors the bombers," Pettersen said. "You can afford to be a bit more aggressive, give it some extra speed and still afford to miss the fairway and you still have a shot at the greens."

Pettersen began the day five shots behind Lincicome, and it was six after a bogey at the first hole. But from there she played flawlessly as she made six birdies and also had a couple other great chances that narrowly missed.

Pettersen, who battled an early-season back injury, feels like she's finally in form, and she said she will tee off Sunday prepared to go low.

"Don't be surprised to see a low one tomorrow because the par-5s are reachable," she said. "?You gotta go out there tomorrow with the intention of going out and winning this outright."

As for the defending champion, Park never seemed to get anything going, yet still, she hung in there and is in great position to become only the third player to win back-to-back Rochester tournaments (Nancy Lopez and Patty Sheehan were the others).

"I hit a couple of bad shots and kind of scrambled around today," she said. "I feel like I definitely left a couple out there today, but No. 17 and 18, you know, dropping those putts (birdie and a par) really helped me for tomorrow."

So the stage is set for what could be a dramatic final act for the LPGA in Rochester.